


Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight

by MercyBuckets



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Nightmares, Oliver Actually Talks About His Feelings, Oliver Queen Has Issues, Oliver-centric, Team Arrow, Team Building, Team Dynamics, Trust Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:55:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8275225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercyBuckets/pseuds/MercyBuckets
Summary: Post 5x02 | Oliver adjusts. The road to starting over is long and difficult but it’s easier with people in your corner. | Will likely be Jossed by next week





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, oops I Arrow-ficced when I was supposed to be writing my Russian essay (ooh, maybe there's a Bratva!Oliver fic in my future). Sorry, not sorry. This isn't beta-ed so all mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Title is from the Amos Lee song of the same name.

 

The nightmares begin within days. In hindsight, Oliver realizes that he should have seen it coming but that first night when he wakes up on the verge of screaming, he can’t think past the images of Evelyn Sharp’s body cradled in his arms with an arrow lodged in her throat. It’s not just her either, his dreams are haunted by a steady stream of bodies

 

_[Curtis, with a sword through his stomach, choking on blood_

_Ramirez, nearly unrecognizable under the blood and bruises, left to die in some alley_

_Regan with Slade’s burns, writhing on the ground in pain]_

 

It’s as if the horrors shake something loose in his mind because once the gate is open, it seems impossible to go back. Every time he closes his eyes he’s seeing Thea bleed out on the floor of the loft, Felicity with a bullet inching toward her spine and Dig, dead by Al Sah-Him’s sword. Not to mention the countless deaths that follow him like ghosts, his father, Shado, Tommy, his mother, Laurel. He brings death with him wherever he goes.

He can’t sleep (not that that’s anything new). He trains, spending more and more time in the cave. It’s just him down there most of the time now. Dig would have knocked some sense into him if he was there but since he isn’t, Oliver figures he’s within his rights to continue with his avoidance and bad coping mechanisms. Thea avoids the Cave whenever possible and Felicity is rarely around after 5pm making it easy for him to explain away the amount time that he spends there. He trains until he literally can’t see straight anymore, then collapses on the cot at the back of the Cave until he wakes up sweating an hour later.

Then he gets up, puts on his expensive suit and goes to make a token appearance at City Hall. Thea’s disapproval is unbearable but no so more than his nightmares and his guilt. He watches her shoulder the burden of running the city in his absence and tries to tell himself that he really is busy with more important things, that he’s not punishing her for leaving him.

 ...

Training with the recruits (Felicity has taken to calling them his ducklings behind his back which would be funnier if it didn’t remind him so much of Laurel) is the one bright spot of his days lately. It’s been so long that he had almost forgotten the pride of watching someone execute a perfect takedown with no help from him. He’s got them fighting each other in rotating teams of two right now. He’s still brutally hard on them but he’s trying to be better about distributing praise too.

 

_[“Physically and emotionally abusive,” spits Felicity._

_“That’s abuse Tommy,” he’s saying at 14 years old._

_“You’ll be just like me someday_ kid _,” says Slade as Oliver cradles his broken arm._

_“I can’t,” coughs Evelyn as he orders her to get to her feet and try again. He drags her up anyway]_

 

He doesn’t know how to do this any differently. It was easier with Roy. Roy understood violence. Like Oliver, he spoke it fluently, learned from a hard childhood in the Glades and honed at Oliver’s lethal hands.

Ramirez is the most like Roy, with a lot of anger and nowhere to put it. But unlike Roy, he isn’t looking for a mentor, Oliver knows that he’s just a means to an end, a stepping stone in Ramirez’s journey. Regan is also angry but he has more in common with Oliver himself than Roy. He has nothing left to lose but he refuses to look for something to live for and Oliver is not the right person to help him with that (Normally he would suggest Felicity but in this case, perhaps not). Evelyn may have nothing left to lose but she fights like like someone afraid of never measuring up. She’s a rule follower and a perfectionist and Oliver can’t seem to get her to think outside of the box. Curtis is the most like Laurel. He’s in it for truth and justice and Oliver can’t find the right way to tell him that this isn’t the right business for morals.

 ...

He calls Roy one night, not expecting an answer.

           

_[Roy, bleeding out in prison, a knife meant for Oliver in his gut]_

 

He doesn’t get one but he leaves a long message that he later deletes. It’s such an overdramatic thing to do that he almost can’t believe that he did it. The sleep loss must finally be getting to him.

 ...

“You can’t keep doing this Ollie,” snaps Thea when he misses yet another meeting (A town council meeting? Budget? He can’t even remember.)

“I can’t be in two places at once Speedy,” he retorts.

It just sort of slips out. Thea freezes.

“Don’t call me that,” she says flatly.

“Thea, I didn’t mean––

She doesn’t let him finish.

“Don’t give me that Oliver,” she says. "Fucking Quentin is dealing with this better than you are."

Her voice is like ice.

 

 _[Thea, freezing cold, bleeding out under his hands. There’s not enough pressure in the world to keep stop the bleeding. Death follows him everywhere he goes. He_ should never _have come home.]_

 

“You may refuse to break this bullshit cycle of violence our parents shoved us into but I’m out. I refuse to live in a world where everything ends in death. Maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass and started living instead of killing, you might be able to look in the mirror without hating yourself.”

They stare at each other for a moment without saying anything before Thea whirls away and slams the door behind her.

 

_[Felicity walking away, Laurel walking away, Tommy walking away]_

 

He doesn't cry. He struggles through the afternoon budget meeting (It was a council meeting he missed, he was right the first time) on his own. It doesn’t go well. He’s trying to make sense of the notes that Thea left in his desk drawer on the meeting he missed when he gets a text from Felicity.

 

...

 

From the time the time he gets the text to the time that he opens the cave door, only 11 minutes pass but it feels like an eternity.

“What happened,” he asks before the door even has time to slam shut behind him.

“He was jumped,” says Felicity. “He fought back but there were too many of them.”

Rene Ramirez is lying unmoving on a table. The harsh glare of the lights throws his bruises into harsh relief. There’s blood leaking from his nose.

 

_[Sara lying dead on the table, her eyes unseeing, her blood like ink.]_

 

“I found him,” says Evelyn.

She’s dressed in street clothes that are a bit too big for her and look like they may have belonged to Thea at some point. Her voice is shaking just a little bit and Oliver finds himself reminded that like he was before the island, Evelyn is new to the violence that suffuses every molecule of his life now, a year ago, she was a normal teenager.

“He was,” she takes a deep breath that hitches almost imperceptibly, “unconscious and they were gone. It was near where we train.”  

“How did he get here?” asks Oliver his voice steady and firm.

Evelyn sits up a bit straighter.

“I called Overwatch,” she says. “Because he was in costume.”

“I sent Curtis to get them,” says Felicity. “He has basic medical training so I figured he’d be able to tell us if a hospital was necessary.”

“Where’s Curtis now?” asks Oliver.

As long as he sticks to asking questions, he can keep himself together.

“Shower,” says Felicity. “There was–– it was bad.”

Oliver nods to cover his own reaction. He’s not worried about Evelyn who has slumped now that he isn’t speaking to her but Felicity is still quite adept at reading him.

“And what’s the verdict?” he asks.

“Three fractured ribs, broken nose and a dislocated shoulder,” says Felicity. “We were waiting for you to set the shoulder because you have more experience with that sort of thing.”

Oliver lets out a breath that he had been pretending not to be holding. He knew that Felicity wouldn’t have been so calm if it was anything life threatening but he needed to hear it.

“Evelyn,” he says.

She immediately sits up ramrod straight.

“You did well,” he says and her shoulders relax a fraction of an inch. “Go call Regan and then you can take the next shower after Curtis. If we need you to help set Ramirez’s arm, we’ll let you know.”

She nods and slips off to do as he bid her.

“She was panicking,” says Felicity. “But she managed once I gave her instructions.”

“We have to break her of that,” says Oliver absently before remembering that there wasn’t really a "We” at the moment.

Felicity either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore his turn of phrase.

“Curtis was a bit shaken up but he handled it like a pro,” she adds.

“He’s not done yet,” says Oliver. “Ramirez’s arm still needs to be taken care of. Do you know who it was that jumped him?”

“Was it Church do you mean?” asks Felicity walking over to a monitor. “It seemed to be related to his previous vigilante activities as far as I could tell.”

Curtis appears still damp from the shower looking subdued.

“Keep me updated,” says Oliver. “Curtis?”

“Oliver,” says Curtis. “I just thought-- I mean, you seem like the right person to set his arm. I’ve never actually done it and I figured you probably had, and now I’m rambling.”

“Well you’re not wrong,” says Oliver thinking of the sick slide of Thea’s joint in the jail cell on Lian Yu (Fuck, he needs to talk to Thea). “I was hoping you might help me hold him down because this is going to hurt.”

“More than training?” asks Evelyn who has reappeared still wearing the same clothes. “I couldn’t reach Regan so I left a vague message.”

Felicity looks faintly relieved (And great, another thing they need to talk about).

“More than training,” says Oliver.

Evelyn hovers for an uncomfortable moment before Oliver figures out what she needs.

“You hold down his legs,” he tells her. “Here by the knees. Curtis, you’ve got his torso and his other arm.”

Ramirez gives Evelyn an impressive bruise when she loses her grip on one of his legs but they are eventually able to get his shoulder back in place.

“You’ve got the next week off from training,” Oliver tells Ramirez who is staring at him through half-closed eyes as if not sure what to expect. “Don’t the rest of you get any ideas.”

“Did he just make a joke?” asks Curtis.

“Not a very good one,” says Evelyn making her way slowly to the shower.

“I don’t think he knows any good jokes,” says Felicity.

“Don’t get used to it,” says Oliver heading for the door. “And the rest of you should get ready for two on one fights now that we’re an odd number.”

 

...

 

When Oliver knocks on Thea’s (Laurel’s) door, his hands shake just a little bit. He can’t help the sudden sinking feeling he feels when it’s Thea who opens it and not Laurel.

“Thea,” he says.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” says Thea immediately.

“You weren’t wrong,” says Oliver.

“But it wasn’t fair to throw it at you like that,” she says. “Come in Ollie. We need to talk.”

He comes in. The first thing he sees is a picture of Laurel, Sara, Tommy, himself and Thea as kids. He takes a deep breath and tells himself that he has done harder things than this.

“I just hate to see you like this,” says Thea. “I know that your time away changed you, but you’re my brother and I still want you to be happy.”

“I know,” says Oliver. “It’s not fair of me to leave you with everything at the office either and I think a tiny part of me was saying that you deserved it because you left the team.”

“Ollie,” says Thea.

“Let me finish,” says Oliver. “I’m in uncharted territory, as the Mayor, with the new recruits and also with myself. I’ve always had someone who I trusted to know when I was crossing the line; Dig, Tommy, Felicity, you, Laurel, and now I’m trying to teach these kids how to protect themselves and Felicity is telling me I’m abusive and today Wild Dog came in with a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder. Sharp is incapable of acting without orders, Felicity can’t be in the same room as Regan, and Curtis still thinks it’s possible to be a hero without getting his hands dirty.”

“When was the last time you slept,” asks Thea cutting through his tirade.

He feels sweaty and drained.

“Too long,” admits Oliver. “I’m not saying I need you back as Speedy with the suit but I need my sister, Speedy.”

“Oh Ollie, I never left,” says Thea pulling him into a hug that he can’t help flinching away from before he relaxes into it.  

“I know that,” he says. “But also I don’t.”

 

...

 

Oliver wakes up sweating but he can’t remember what he was dreaming about. He’s fully clothed and laying on Thea’s couch. Thea is curled up next to him and the TV is quietly replaying _The Empire Strikes Back_. He grabs his phone from the coffee table and sends out a text reading, “Training is canceled for today, don’t get used to it.”

He’s settling back down when his phone begins to vibrate. Unlisted number. He picks it up immediately, assuming the worst.

“I hear you’re having trouble with your new recruits old man,” says Roy.

“Don’t worry,” says Oliver. “None of them are as much trouble as you were.”

 

 

 


End file.
